4/29/2008
How does your marketing taste?
Regardless of the forum you use for marketing, there are four essential ingredients to make sure you have a tasty message! 1. Customers want to know who you are and what you are all about. The easiest and least expensive way to make this happen is via the Internet. Right now, potential consumers everywhere are on-line looking for your service and the more they know about you, the more likely they are to hire you. 2. Offer a value-packed product. When a consumer has multiple experts to choose from for a particular service, they will go with the professional that offers the most value, not necessarily the one that is the least expensive. It is important to know the difference! 3. Incentives are important. Once you have provided great service to customers, it is likely they will return, but incentives are key when trying to attract new customers. Offering free promotional products of value or discount coupons can make the difference. 4. Don’t let past customers forget you. Use a post-sale marketing campaign to stay in front of past customers so they remember your great work the next time they are in the market for your service. Labels: Internet Marketing, marketing, small business marketing |
4/24/2008
SAY “I CAN DO IT MYSELF!” WITH CONFIDENCE!
| (Your business success depends upon it) A good rule of thumb with any “Do It Yourself” project is to be sure that you have all the tools you need to successfully complete the project. Should writing your marketing copy be any different? The answer is ABSOLUTELY not! Most small business people, entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants and VAs know that good copywriting is incredibly valuable and crucial to good business. And many of these people and businesses want to or have to write their own copy. Meanwhile, most experts don’t want to “give away” their techniques for fear that they won’t have any business or clients. I think there’s a real lack of good DIY Copywriting and marketing resources out there, so I wanted to create a great tool to implement and use immediately. I always ask why good marketing and copywriting resources should be overly complicated or confusing. I think you should read something, implement what you need, move forward in your marketing and then re-visit the expert sources again and again each time you need some guidance. The principles and techniques presented in my DIY copywriting book can be applied across all marketing media from web pages, brochures and ads to e-mail campaigns and direct mail pieces. Check it out for yourself:Do-It-Yourself Copywriting Guaranteed to Ignite Sales & Explode Your Business can be downloaded at: www.getitinwriting.biz/landing_Do_It_Yourself_CopyWriting.html. Labels: copywriting, copywriting 101, copywriting book |
4/22/2008
Effective Networking, Words to Live By (Part 2 of 2)
 In the last post, we talked about the importance of networking. What about those of you who hide behind your computer?Come on, you know who are you are! Well networking is just as important for you. Trust me, I know first-hand how hard it can be to make time. Between work, family and life, I am just as busy as the next person. However, what I have to come to learn is that networking is essential to sustain my business growth. If I want to stay busy behind my computer, I need the customers to do it! I found a great article by Internet marketing guru Derek Gehl that focused on effective networking and how to best utilize workshops. I highly recommend it to anyone that may be feeling a bit overwhelmed by the process. Some highlights: • When meeting people, describe yourself and your business in less than 10 seconds. • Don’t stay too long in one place. If at a workshop and the conversation is running beyond eight or 10 minutes excuse yourself politely, so that you have ample time to meet other people. • Listen and ask questions, this is a key part of networking. You don’t have to be the one doing all the talking for the networking to be effective. • Follow up. Once the workshop is over, keep networking. Labels: networking, online networking |
4/21/2008
Effective Networking, Words to Live By (Part 1 of 2)
Whether you are employed or self-employed, work from home, work in a large corporate office or are somewhere in between, you likely know that effective networking is essential to your success.  So why do so few people do it effectively? I have heard from many people that they feel like networking is phony, for schmoozers, and with the rise in Internet usage, a thing of the past. For all of you who don’t feel comfortable networking, I have to tell you that all of those excuses are nowhere near the truth. Business, regardless of the industry, is all about people and the relationships between them. I can tell you with certainty that there are many people out there that do exactly what you do just as well as you do. The professionals that thrive and succeed are the ones with lasting relationships and effective networking that allows them to build new relationships. Labels: networking, online networking |
4/18/2008
Journalists,Are One Target Market You Can't Forget
 We all know that a great way to make more sales, grow your business and gain name recognition is through having your company or service featured in an article that appears in a well-read publication. The first step towards having your article appear in one of these publications is to become known by the journalist. Are you wondering how to go about doing that? The easiest way, is to target journalists the same way you would target customers. It may sound odd, but you want to sell the journalist on your service or product, just as much as your target market. If the journalist doesn’t know your product or service, how are they going to write about it? Here is what to do: 1. Gather a list of journalists and determine which would be most meaningful for your business. 2. Read what those targeted journalists write. Get to know what they like and how they like to see it. They may even have a blog you can frequent and comment on, as well as reference within your blog. 3. Start a plan and schedule to send them information about you and your business. Don’t push for articles, just try to build a real relationship with them. 4. NETWORK. (I know it appears twice…because it is VERY important). Invite them for a sandwich or a cup of coffee. Labels: P.R., public relations, publicity |
4/15/2008
Are You Choosing the Right Marketing Vehicle?
| You have a limited budget and can’t do everything you want to do marketing-wise. Sound familiar? How do you know what marketing vehicle to choose? How do you know whether you should be writing a brochure, a webpage or something else? Take some time to figure out the following:  What is the purpose of this marketing effort? Is it for a one-time event or product? Is it a general corporate or business piece that is meant to last for a long time?How will it be distributed? If it is not something you need to deliver in person (like a sales sheet at a trade show), then online/web may be your best bet. If it needs to be mailed, that’s something you need to determine as well. Will it be “evergreen” or revised often? A web page or other online format is far easier (and less expensive) to update than is a print piece. Who is your audience? Does it get all of its information online? Is this an in-person sales type of relationship? You need to know how your target market best accesses and digests its information. Labels: low-budget marketing, marketing, marketing research |
4/12/2008
Marketing is an imperfect science at best.
 I get calls, e-mails and face-to-face questions about all aspects of marketing all the time. The most common one may be this: “What is the best way to market my business? [Blank] or [blank]? The blanks represent a certain kind of marketing vehicle. So someone will ask if I think postcards are better than an e-newsletter, or a press release gets more mileage than a print ad. There is no one answer to this question. A local drycleaning business has a different market, and therefore different marketing needs, than an online gift company. Anyone, and I mean ANYONE, who views marketing as a one-size-fits-all kind of thing has it all wrong. And I promise you their results will speak for themselves. No matter what expert you hire, no matter what kind of expert you may be on your own, this is a very subjective thing. For sure, there is much we can do to ensure we’re going in the right direction toward our sales goals, but at the end of the day, marketing is not neat and it’s not a science. Labels: making mistakes, marketing, online marketing |
4/09/2008
More Than CopyWriters
When we last left off two weeks ago, I was explaining how, for me, my business/professional (as well as personal) goals have, inevitably, changed and evolved over time. Whereas in the early days of Get It In Writing I did my best to work with all businesses and all budgets, I have become more specific and niche-oriented over the years.  So it’s not a change of what we do, but a shift in how we present what we do. Our best client is a fast-growing small business or entrepreneurial company with a significant Internet presence (or looking to build a significant presence). They know that the best way to grow and build their businesses is through the use of content and information (more on information marketing in a future issue) as the backbone of their efforts. They are in this for the long-term, have ongoing content and marketing goals and needs and they understand and have the kind of budget necessary to get the job done. Over time, we have been more than copywriters and copywriting providers to clients – we have become their marketing consultants, their marketing planners and their project managers. So much so that, I have come to realize, we are more of a full-service marketing company than most of the marketing companies I have seen in the marketplace! For clients looking for one-time projects, I now have a wonderful copywriting-only company I work with and would be happy to refer you to directly. The way I see it, everyone wins: my company is free to say we do what we really are already doing. Other copywriting companies enjoy more work and added referrals. And, best of all, our clients experience first-hand the power of ongoing information-based marketing with a partner in it with them for the long haul. Labels: marketing, writing for the web |
4/06/2008
Is Your Content Green?
| You may already think (rightly so) that content is what drives your future sales and current visibility and sales inquiries. You may also think (not so rightly) that you need to have a lot of content to push your marketing efforts, you can't reuse past material. But the truth is that you can. Consider it a means of recycling, saving the Earth one article at a time. If you can reuse a soda can, you can reuse a business article. So why not contribute to the “greening” of marketing content?  YOUR: Expertise is valuable, right? Services and products are much-needed, right? Target customers are eager for whatever tips you can give them, right? SO…why would you share only once? Take your existing content and re-purpose it. The recycling potential of good content is priceless – and you never know who you will “speak” to and in what format.
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4/03/2008
Anatomy of a blog entry (a good blog entry)
4/01/2008
Platinum Joint Venture Bonus Giveaway
| As I told you last week, today is the launch of the Platinum JV of which I am a part. What is the Platinum JV? Very simply it is a group of 10 Internet-based entrepreneurs who decided to pool our expertise and give away 10 e-products (mostly e-books) for free. Yes, for free.  Really…for free. (Click here to view the press release.) Ready to tap into these products and the accompanying expertise? Click here to begin downloading immediately. Also, feel free to send this link to anyone and everyone you know, work with, live near, like and have heard of: http://www.kathleengage.com/jvplatinum.htm Labels: business, business advice, business building, entrepreneurs |